


Game of Hearts

by perculious



Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-07-22
Packaged: 2018-02-09 22:27:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2000265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perculious/pseuds/perculious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mytho is a gargoyle, a monster, a creature beyond what anyone could love—but Fakir’s heart is attached to Mytho like the tide to the moon. If Mytho pulls, his heart will follow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Game of Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically just an alternative version of the Mytho + Fakir fight scene from Episode 20. It picks up right from canon.

“Mytho... using Rachael like that... don’t you feel anything?”

Something passes over Mytho’s face—rage, Fakir thinks, at least Fakir’s getting through to him somehow...

“I was trying to save her!” Mytho leaps into the air, sword held high above his head. Fakir settles into a fighting stance, registering the sound of Ahiru—Princess Tutu, but still Ahiru—yelling behind him. His blood is rushing through his veins, and he feels bright and alive. It feels good to have Mytho confront him, to have Mytho finally _angry_ at him, like the impact of a blow you saw coming but could not block.

Their swords clash with a metallic scrape, and Fakir holds Mytho back easily. Mytho is slight, and Fakir is stronger. This close, he can see the influence of the raven’s blood, Mytho’s eyes glowing with savagery. Mytho’s shoulders are trembling slightly with the effort of pushing against Fakir’s sword, and Fakir can see the rage in him, seething like a live thing. It’s like holding back a tiger; Mytho wants to tear him apart. Fakir can feel it. Mytho’s sword might as well be his teeth.

All at once, Mytho jumps back, as light and fluid as he is in the studio. He alights, and points his sword directly at Fakir’s chest. His face twists into a cruel smirk, his eyes still burning with the blood-fueled hate. It’s like seeing one of Charon’s machines, a puppet driven only by the desire to fulfill its purpose.

“You deprived me of my sacrifice,” Mytho says. Fakir has never heard him sound like this. Is this part of Mytho’s heart? Is it entirely the influence of the raven, or is there a side to Mytho that houses this darkness? Fakir has known him since childhood, but Mytho is now full of pieces of himself that Fakir doesn’t recognize.

“The question is,” Mytho says, “does Fakir have a beautiful heart? Can Fakir give me what I want?”

“I didn’t do anything to you, Mytho,” Fakir says urgently, trying to speak through the haze that Mytho is held in. “You wouldn’t have tried to hurt her. The real Mytho wouldn’t.”

“I didn’t,” Mytho says. “I offered her what she wanted! She wanted love!” He throws his arms out wide. “I was giving her what she wanted, that’s all!”

His eyes blaze, his lips turning upward. “I can give you what you want, Fakir.”

Fakir’s eyes widen, and he grips his sword more tightly. This is definitely some kind of trick. Mytho is dangerous. Not a tiger after all, but a raven, intelligent and able to strike with precision.

“I don’t want anything,” Fakir says. “I just want you to stop this!”

“Fakir’s heart isn’t beautiful,” Mytho says. He wraps his arms around his chest and tilts his head to the side, pulling his face into a grotesque frown. “Poor knight. Rachael is beautiful because she loves purely. But Fakir’s love is weak and cowardly.”

Fakir is frozen. His grip on the sword is so tight he can’t feel his fingers. All these years Mytho has been a blank page, his expressions as colorless as his appearance. Fakir hasn’t done a good job of hiding his heart from Mytho; he never thought he’d need to.

“He couldn’t even die for me,” Mytho says. “Not even when he was supposed to. You didn’t _die_.” He spits this at Fakir, his voice igniting with rage again, and he points his sword right at Fakir’s head. Shame, black and disorienting, grips Fakir.

“Mytho, stop this,” he commands. He gestures with his sword, a short, abrupt movement. “Fight me! _Fight_ me!”

“You were supposed to die,” Mytho breathes. Then he laughs brightly, lowering the sword again. “But you can make it up to me, Fakir. I think even your corrupted heart would make a good sacrifice.”

Mytho spreads his arms and raven’s wings slice into the air, shedding black feathers like chips of ice. He soars upward, his face a cruel mask. He is a gargoyle, a monster, a creature beyond what anyone could love—but Fakir’s heart is attached to Mytho like the tide to the moon. If Mytho pulls, his heart will follow.

“I would love you,” Mytho says. “Even you, Fakir. I can be yours.”

Fakir lowers the sword, his arms shaking. He tells himself it’s from holding the sword up for too long. This isn’t real. This is false. This is raven magic—it might as well be Kraehe standing in front of him. But it’s Mytho, pale and white like he’s made of the paper his storybook is printed on. To Fakir, Mytho has never looked entirely real, has always seemed to be a creature of magic. Something so perfect and pure that Fakir was lucky just to be near him. Something so precious Fakir would give his life for him, except he hadn’t, he’d lived like a coward and if it hadn’t been for Ahiru...

“I can be yours if you give yourself to me,” Mytho says. Something in Fakir’s chest breaks. He can’t hold himself up any longer. He doesn’t know if the collapse is physical or emotional, but it doesn’t matter. He weakens, and Mytho’s magic surges up to grab him.

Fakir feels the ground beneath him bubble and erupt, black tendrils rising below him to bring him up to Mytho’s level. He feels like a gargoyle himself, paralyzed. Mytho is looking directly into his eyes. Mytho can look at him now, look at him for real, not just the dead gaze Fakir’s seen from him for all their lives. Mytho can hurt him now.

“Fakir,” Mytho says, and his voice is alarmingly soft, gentle. Fakir knows it’s a lie, but that knowledge is locked somewhere outside his head. Irrelevant. He thinks of night after night that he’s stayed up worrying about Mytho, gazing across the room, content to see Mytho’s chest rise and fall, his eyelashes flutter in sleep. He’s never dared to want more than that.

“Tell me you love me,” Mytho says.

Fakir’s mouth opens. He can hear himself breathing unsteadily, feel his legs trembling as they’re supported by the black mass.

“I love you,” he says. It’s like a piece of him is being torn out through his chest, like Mytho has already taken his heart. If this is what it feels like to die, Fakir thinks, then he can stand it.

“Turn your hatred on all other things,” Mytho sing-songs. He is beautiful, more beautiful than ever, except that he always has been. Impossibly beautiful, too beautiful to believe.

“I will,” Fakir promises him. “I will turn my hatred on all other things.” It’s an easy promise. The idea that he could love anyone, anything but Mytho is laughable. Mytho’s face is all he can see; he doesn’t know if it’s possible for him to look away. 

Mytho is dangerous. Fakir knows it. He’s seen Mytho go after victim upon victim, drawing them in with tantalizing promises, smiling at them with a softness that hides the raven’s talons. But what is there to lose? They’re suspended across from each other, black and white, a chiaroscuro. On one side, Fakir, a mistake of a boy. His life was marked as leverage long ago, to be traded for Mytho’s protection. That he still exists is an aberration, an insult. On the other side, Mytho, the only true good Fakir has ever known. Not unpredictable Charon, whose rage boils up at Fakir without warning. Not desperate, cruel Rue. Not dozens upon dozens of worthless ballet students, a backdrop against which Mytho only shines more brightly. 

Fakir for Mytho isn’t only a sensible exchange. It’s the one he’s spent his entire life prepared for.

The black earth around him grips him tight, and he’s grateful for it. He is giving Mytho everything he has to give. He can’t do any more.

Mytho’s face lights up with triumph, and he spreads his wings farther, throwing his head back.

There’s something trying to get through the haze in Fakir’s head, a wrong note in the symphony that’s clanging through his mind. He pushes it away, focusing on Mytho. Mytho is the only thing that matters. He’s always known it, and it’s so clear now, so simple.

“Fakir! _Fakir!_ ” There it is again, the wrong note, ruining everything. Fakir can’t seem to place where the sound is coming from.

“Look at me!” Mytho commands, so he does. This is right. It makes sense in the way that stories make sense. The knight’s job is to devote his life to the prince; the prince’s job is to do what he wants with it.

“ _Fakir!_ ” The voice is growing in volume and desperation. “Fakir, please, listen to me!”

“Don’t listen,” Mytho says, his voice rising sharply. “Look at me, Fakir. Only me.”

But if Mytho acknowledges it, then it means the voice is real. Fakir’s head is spinning, the room around him a blur.

“Fakir, you want to protect Mytho, right?” The voice is high and musical.

What a foolish question. Can’t Ahiru see--that’s right, he remembers, Ahiru, it’s Ahiru’s voice--that that’s exactly what he’s doing? He fills his eyes with Mytho, trying to block her out. This is the only thing that’s felt right since the fight at the lake. Ahiru can’t take this from him.

“You can’t protect him like this!” Ahiru yells.

“I am protecting him,” he says.

“You can’t protect him if you’re gone. Fakir, Mytho _needs_ you. If you do this, you can’t help him.”

But that doesn’t make any sense, because this is what Mytho wants. Mytho is asking him to do this. Fakir shakes his head a little, trying to clear it. Why is Ahiru here?

“Fakir. You are important to Mytho. He needs you to save him. I need you. Please!”

Ahiru... Ahiru is here because she’s Princess Tutu. Because she wants to return Mytho’s heart... and she wants to stop Mytho from taking sacrifices. Fakir startles, his eyes snapping wide. He looks down. He’s being held in the air by Mytho’s raven magic, and Ahiru, as Tutu, is dancing.

Fakir looks back up at Mytho. His face is distorted by anger and hatred. He’s like a child whose toys are being taken away, Fakir thinks. This _isn’t_ Mytho—even without ever having known Mytho’s heart, Fakir knows that it did not create this creature.

“Put me down, Mytho,” he says.

“No,” Mytho says, panic distorting his voice. “No, you’re mine!” Fakir feels himself surge forward, the black mass tipping him unsteadily towards Mytho. Mytho grabs Fakir’s chin and presses his lips to Fakir’s. He’s cold as marble, his grip tight and a little painful. It feels like nothing but what it is: an act of desperation. An act of violence, really, a knife thrown at Fakir’s heart. It hurts, a bright, sharp pain in the center of Fakir’s chest, and for a moment he thinks Mytho is ripping his heart out right now.

There’s nothing in the action to remind Fakir of the Mytho he’s known, the Mytho who would smile down at a baby bird cradled in his arms, and it shakes the last curls of the haziness loose from his brain.

Mytho drops him and gazes down at him, his mouth twisted upward in cruel satisfaction.

“Let me go,” Fakir says, quiet but firm.

“ _No!_ ” Mytho screams, but it’s too late—the magic is loosening its hold. Mytho’s face shrinks as Fakir sinks down, his feet touching down on the ground unsteadily. He sways and drops to one knee, catching himself with his sword tip embedded in the ground.

“Fakir!” He can hear Ahiru running up behind him—her footsteps as Tutu much lighter than the usual Ahiru stumble—and he catches her wrist just before she puts a hand on his shoulder. Ahiru likes him too much. It’s not to be encouraged.

“Are you okay?” Ahiru says, out of breath. Fakir turns to her; in his peripheral vision, Mytho molts, the corvid trappings melting away.

“I’m fine,” he says shortly, hyperconscious of Ahiru’s gaze. It’s like someone has peeled away his skin. Ahiru saw him ready to die. Ahiru heard him say he loved Mytho. He can still feel Mytho’s cold grip on his chin, Mytho’s cold mouth on his.

Mytho dwindles down to the ground, no longer an angel or a demon but a schoolkid again, a schoolkid wearing black clothes and a silly crown. He falls to his knees, black feathers piling up beneath him, like his body is shedding parts.

“Fakir,” he says, plaintive. Fakir looks at him warily, even as part of his heart responds, as it always does.

“Fakir,” Mytho says again, and then he cries out, clutching his chest. “What’s happening?”

Fakir raises his sword—it’s probably another trap--but Ahiru rushes forward, kneeling down by Mytho. Her skirt puffs up as she drops, and then settles.

“Mytho, it’s me!” she says, peering into his face. “Wake up!”

“No!” Mytho screams. “Stay away from me! Leave me _alone!_ ” He lurches forward, not clearly talking to either Ahiru or himself. He makes a violent arm gesture and vanishes, the movement stirring up the black feathers, which dance in the air.

Fakir stares at the place where he was, breathing heavily. Then he hears a noise behind him and turns, dropping his sword with a clatter, and rushes to Rachael.

She apologizes to him, but he can barely listen. With everything happening, he forgot that Rachael was here. Rachael saw everything too—did Rachael know? When they were kids? Was it obvious how Fakir felt about Mytho?

Rachael slips into unconsciousness, and Fakir turns to leave. “Take care of her,” he tells Ahiru.

On the cold walk back to Charon’s place, he takes inventory. His shoulder muscles ache. His legs are still shaky, and the after-effects of the adrenaline make all his muscles feel weak. There’s a cold place in his chest, right where, he imagines, the raven would have bit into his heart. Mytho didn’t take it, but it feels like he dug his claws in. Like it’s Fakir’s heart that’s about to shatter.

It hurts. He deserves to hurt.

He clenches his hands into fists at his sides. A knight is supposed to fight, but he doesn’t know what to fight against. Mytho is already fighting himself. Ahiru has done more than Fakir will ever do. Fakir is useless, a puppet without a purpose.

He retreats to Charon’s house, determined to scrub Mytho out of his mind and heart. He can’t be compromised by weaknesses anymore. Rachael already got hurt because of him, and Ahiru is too close for Fakir’s comfort. He’s a knight; he has people to fight for.


End file.
